Category Archives: Homepage

Richard Prince: borrowing talent, selling a lie

Posted on May 30, 2015 by editor, facilitator, decider

Careful what you upload to Instagram. You just might wind up an inadvertent and uncompensated collaborator to serial fauxtographer, Richard Prince. Prince seems to have built a career by profiting from a fine line that most artists, writers, and harried … Continue reading →

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Andy Warhol and the 64-bit treasure hunt

Posted on May 10, 2015 by editor, facilitator, decider

Just over a year ago the Andy Warhol Museum announced something the art world couldn’t have anticipated: the recovery of numerous works by the pop-art maestro unseen for nearly 30 years. Of course, discovery or rediscovery of lost masterpieces isn’t … Continue reading →

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Too many to remember, too execrable to forget

Posted on May 3, 2015 by editor, facilitator, decider

Hat tip and thanks to online comedy purveyors Above Average for providing a timely if flippant reminder that history abounds with calamitous jackasses. The debut episode of their edifyingly educational web series, Forgotten Assholes of History is up (as well as … Continue reading →

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History in the margins

Posted on April 12, 2015 by editor, facilitator, decider

It might be the bane of librarians, but after a certain interval marginalia becomes history itself. In this case the tome is the Black Book of Carmarthen (so named for its distinctive black binding), and as the oldest known manuscript … Continue reading →

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Jian Ghomeshi – a predator in the spotlight

Posted on November 6, 2014 by editor, facilitator, decider

Short of a confession, in these vexing and vicious cases of “he said/she said,” the next best thing for determining guilt has to be a preponderance of evidence. And short of evidence—because the predator often takes care not to leave … Continue reading →

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Is the art world wracked by fraud?

Posted on October 19, 2014 by editor, facilitator, decider

Seems like a dirty little secret of the art world, one that’s probably been whispered about since art became a commodity and collections became investments, is breaking out into the open. Dealers, curators, and those investment-level collectors probably aren’t sanguine about … Continue reading →

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The art, it gets under your skin

Posted on October 9, 2014 by editor, facilitator, decider

Since no one is really painting on cave walls anymore, we have to agree that there’s just one art form that has survived since primordial times, and is practiced just as fervently and reverentially today as it was then, as … Continue reading →

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Katie Paterson and Margaret Atwood play the literary long game

Posted on September 6, 2014 by editor, facilitator, decider

Great literature might be timeless, but until now both of those superlatives—greatness and timelessness—have been unintended (and probably too-good-to-be-hoped-for) parts of the writing experience. Writers write, readers judge, and history ultimately decides. That’s how it’s always gone Leave it to … Continue reading →

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Nina Paley illuminates the Levant

Posted on August 9, 2014 by editor, facilitator, decider

Artist, activist, filmmaker (and much more) Nina Paley might just have succeeded were corps of cognoscenti and commentators have been left foundering. Their line of inquiry, topical yet perpetual, has been, “Why can’t there be peace in the Middle East?” … Continue reading →

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RIP Tommy Ramone (Jan 29 1949 – July 11 2014)

Posted on July 13, 2014 by editor, facilitator, decider

Correct me if you must that he was born Erdélyi Tamás. Insist if you must that he and Johnny and Dee Dee and Joey weren’t really brothers. I won’t start believing that now, because I never stopped believing that Rock … Continue reading →

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July 4 2014 – Celebrate…something

Posted on July 4, 2014 by editor, facilitator, decider

Today is not the anniversary of representative democracy. It’s the birthday of revolution. To which I say—aw yeah. Revolution is something I can celebrate. It’s something I can emulate, with fire and long fuses and banshee screams. More than a … Continue reading →

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A matter of opinion

Posted on December 28, 2013 by editor, facilitator, decider

America’s last great pop-culture controversy of 2013 (last as of this writing; I sure hope no toppers are lurking ’round the corner)…swirls about the A&E swampbillies-made-good docu-melodrama, Duck Dynasty. Hopefully you know the score, because it would pain me to … Continue reading →

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Who is burning the Heidelberg Houses?

Posted on November 17, 2013 by editor, facilitator, decider

Art has to transform something, beyond its own medium and materials. It has to transform a space, even a landscape. Often in doing so, it transforms some minds. Which is intended, or at least hoped for. But then there are … Continue reading →

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Bygone Halloweens: The Spook Show

Posted on October 29, 2013 by editor, facilitator, decider

Traditions come and go. Sometimes they even come back. When I was very young, the Halloween tradition of trick-or-treating was abandoned, owing to possibly spurious rumors of poisoned candy or razor blades in apples. Then as I got older, the … Continue reading →

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RIP Lou Reed (March 2, 1942 – Oct 27 2013)

Posted on October 27, 2013 by editor, facilitator, decider

The man who put pop art into pop rock is no more. Lou Reed founded the Velvet Underground in 1964—probably just a bit too early for his revolutionary glam-style of songwriting and performing. He persevered, and by the seventies the … Continue reading →

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